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Gen Z does not dream of labor

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Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#121

Post by notreallyserio »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #79
burlesona wrote: post #14

> “My dad got a job straight out of high school, saved up, and bought a house in his 20s,” said Anne Dakota, a 21-year-old receptionist from Asheville, North Carolina, who earns minimum wage. “I don’t even think that’s possible for me, at least with the current money I make.” I think this is pretty much the whole story. It’s very hard to be motivated to work when you could save your entire adult life and still strugg…

> > “My dad got a job straight out of high school, saved up, and bought a house in his 20s,” said Anne Dakota, a 21-year-old receptionist from Asheville, North Carolina, who earns minimum wage. “I don’t even think that’s possible for me, at least with the current money I make.” This anecdote is presented as the norm, but it’s actually far from it. “Minimum wage” is the tip off that the journalist went out searching f…

> For all the talk about minimum wage jobs, only around 1% of jobs actually pay federal minimum wage.

I see this stat a lot and it leaves me wondering how many people are within, say, 50 cents or 5%[0] of minimum wage. The percent of workers earning minimum wage doesn't seem that useful (and I guess neither would the figures returned for my request).

In any case I'd find hours required to live alone within ~30 minutes of work a more compelling statistic. It adjusts for CoL and represents a reasonable lifestyle to shoot for.

0: not suggesting these are equivalent figures

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#123

Post by crdrost »

burlesona wrote: post #14

> “My dad got a job straight out of high school, saved up, and bought a house in his 20s,” said Anne Dakota, a 21-year-old receptionist from Asheville, North Carolina, who earns minimum wage. “I don’t even think that’s possible for me, at least with the current money I make.” I think this is pretty much the whole story. It’s very hard to be motivated to work when you could save your entire adult life and still strugg…

I just want to point out that this attitude is actually strictly rational.

Suppose you have a credit card that is not yet at its limit, and you are not accumulating late fees... you can buy a $200 TV in exchange for paying $5/mo in perpetuity, at a 30% APR. Interest rates connect the indefinite future back to the past and in fact they set an equivalent time horizon. So you can phrase the exact problem as asking what cancelling an unused $5/mo Netflix account is really worth to you, and the answer is again $200. The indefinite future of payments is just 1/r, a conversion factor of 40 months in this case.

If you are getting into late fees those can triple interest or so, you might have a time horizon only a year off. Or if you are into payday loans and 400%/year interest, the indefinite future is literally only 3 months away, you cannot rationally “think past tomorrow.” At 30%/year your rational time horizon is a little over 3 years. If you then have debt paid back and a retirement account in an S&P index fund and we call that 10% year on year, your indefinite future is 10 years away.

“People are willing to save and/or hustle for 5-10 years” indeed, 5-10 years is financial eternity for most people!

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#124

Post by nonrandomstring »

I think these young people are being cynically manipulated. Who benefits if the youth eschew active living? Who gains if they exchange self-worth for the selfie-stick, and a life of preening vanity? Social media feeds on this disenchantment. Sure, if you resent exploitation and wabt to "go Galt" don't learn programming so that you can slave for soulless big-tech, go and learn programming so you can burn it to the ground. Or go and work for a charity, volunteer to start putting the world right at the most basic human level. Do anything but what feeds the vampire machine that grows strong from your disaffection.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#125

Post by syshum »

ThePrankster wrote: post #92
bufferoverflow wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this narrative is that the job of the father isn't specified. He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. These jobs pay well above the minimum wage. The world has changed - simple labor that requires a few days of training doesn't pay much. Most jobs, with few exceptions, that require a decade of training, do pay well. That's why there's such a huge…

Anecdote: I am Gen Z. This story holds true for my parents and I. My dad was a solider in Latin America, my mom, a nurse. Their job required, at most, 2 years of education beyond High School. I am a data analyst, with a Bachelor's and a Master's. I earn more than they both did together, adjusted for inflation. My friends are in "specialized jobs" as well -- some even being doctors and lawyers. We still have zero hope…

I am late late GenX, and I have no higher education, own my car out right (late model pretty nice), I will pay off my home in the next 5 years, and I financially support one of my parents. I make less than 6 figures so I would not consider myself to be "rich"

I think the key for me is the fact I choose not to incur educational debt getting a BS and/or MS, I also choose to live in a non-coastal region that does not have crazy housing prices. I also had lots of support from my parents* when I was younger so establish myself financially (like enabling me to be able to save for the down payment on this home)

I worked very hard and now make a pretty decent wage after decades of working lower wage jobs.

* To be clear this is just basic support like a stable roof over my head, the were lower middle class as well, their combined income was less than 6 figures, we had a basic home, food, etc but no luxuries, no vacations, one of the reasons I did not go to college was I did not want debt, and the family had no money for tuition

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#126

Post by einpoklum »

endisneigh wrote: post #28

Curious how all of the issues are resolved. If workers (as they should imo) get paid more, it will result in more inflation, resulting in their purchasing power on key things like housing effectively not changing as inflation adjusts the cost of housing to be more expensive. I'm also curious to see if companies run by Gen Z pay better or worse than Boomer run companies. If they're not I don't see how the situation wi…

Wages in the US have been stagnant in real terms for decades:

https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

but the prices of houses have shot up massively. So, not sure why you are so certain that wages rising would lead to significant inflation in housing prices.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#127

Post by cmckn »

eulers_secret wrote: post #90
burlesona wrote: post #14

> “My dad got a job straight out of high school, saved up, and bought a house in his 20s,” said Anne Dakota, a 21-year-old receptionist from Asheville, North Carolina, who earns minimum wage. “I don’t even think that’s possible for me, at least with the current money I make.” I think this is pretty much the whole story. It’s very hard to be motivated to work when you could save your entire adult life and still strugg…

This is part of why I left my job. I had the realization that my dream (homeownership/2 kids) was untenable with my income (~$135K TC) in my area. I could certainly get the credit for it, but my life would be one long hardship living under wage slavery, being house-poor, having little free time, paying exorbitantly to watch others raise my kids, and not having the opportunities I currently have... I kinda gave up on…

Sounds like you haven’t given up on your ‘dream’ if you’re currently still grinding to attain it.

Hate to break it to you, but many, many people raise kids and own a home with way less than $135k, even in your area. If you don’t want to attempt it because it’ll be hard, stressful, risky, etc.; maybe that’s worth reflecting on? Sometimes your standards/expectations are what need to change.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#128

Post by throwaway-m3232 »

Jerred wrote: post #38

As a Gen Z it's not that our entire generation is lazy it's that we've seen our parents give their entire lives to a company or industry just counting down the years to retirement. That personally is my worst case scenario for my career. Sure some people my age just want to be famous and not do any hard work, but I'd say the majority just don't want to be a "good employee" for 40 years just increasing the number ever…

No post body was provided.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#129

Post by bloqs »

The only thing that has changed is that it is normal to declare thoughts that were previously unacceptable, like not wanting to work, the more publically the better. Personalities still vary (big five - conscienciousness), some people live to work, others dont, but the latter just dont shut up about it anymore.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#130

Post by ushakov »

rtlfe wrote: post #103
bufferoverflow wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this narrative is that the job of the father isn't specified. He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. These jobs pay well above the minimum wage. The world has changed - simple labor that requires a few days of training doesn't pay much. Most jobs, with few exceptions, that require a decade of training, do pay well. That's why there's such a huge…

> you have to choose your specialization wisely The problem is that most people don't get to choose. There are few of these high paying jobs, so by definition most people are excluded. Either because they're not "smart" enough to get into elite training programs (e.g. medical school) or because they don't have enough money to spend years in training with zero or negative income.

that's in the US though

in Germany even if you're poor you can go to the University and succeed

my friends all studied and they were from normal working-class families

everyone gets a chance and all you need is put some effort

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